dementor daycare iv
by queendementor
Summary: it's just a normal day at the daycare. but when an unexpected guest arrives, accommodations must be made.


**dementor daycare iv**

_a/n: idefk_

As always, when Les opened the daycare for the day, she immediately found Sev and Gel running around and throwing things everywhere while Modesty quietly sat in the middle of the carnage making a leaf rubbing - a _sensible _use of leaves, far removed from anything involving a leaf machine.

Today's first caregivers to arrive were Ella (per usual) and Amycus, strangely Maisieless. Draco waited only for his mother to let go of his hand before he toddled off to play with the boys, leaving Ella to inadvertently say goodbye to Les instead.

Alecto, thankfully clad in her shiny overalls to prevent pantlessness, had yet to dislodge her thumb from her mouth for the morning, and she had brought along her bag of rice. Les had hoped this meant Alecto might be persuaded to take a nap or at least do something productive. It was soon clear that neither would happen, and Alecto would play with her rice (as she did now) until it was forcefully confiscated.

Tassie arrived with Albie (who sprinted off immediately to play with Gel) and Newt (who sat down with his plush niffler and Pickett to wait for Scabior.) Harry was gone as soon as Cam let go of his hand. It seemed the toddlers were especially wound-up today.

Dragon was last to arrive. Chastity had arrived with her group, but split from them almost as soon as she arrived to stop Gellert from removing his pants. Credence and Nagini sat at the table with Modesty, most likely recalling some anecdote about their former adoptive mother and all her leaves.

"Please tell me that's all of them," Barty said as soon as Dragon left. "We already have eleven of them to wrangle, and if another one shows up, we're going to have to put a now hiring sign in the window."

"We have all our regulars," Les responded. "And yes, eleven is a lot, but if you think about it, we really only have eight that need our constant supervision. Credence, Nagini, and Modesty aren't going to do anything strange."

She looked around. The little boys were still running around, Chastity was trying to get Draco to part with the wad of toilet paper he had somehow ended up with, and Alecto was building the Leaning Tower of Rice. As she'd expected, the three she had mentioned earlier were still at the table talking about how it was infinitely harder to wash leaves with bleeding hands.

There was a knock at the door. Les sent her husband to answer it as she began trying to round the children up for circle time, which was far easier said than done.

"Hello?" Barty asked.

In front of him stood a woman who, in his opinion, looked a little too old to have a child young enough to be in daycare. Perhaps the little girl whose hand she held was her granddaughter?

"Hello," the woman said, her smile brief, as if she meant to be warm and friendly but lacked the time to do so. "I hate to ask you this, but do you think you could watch my daughter for a few hours? I'm sorry, but she simply can't come with me and I have no one else to leave her with."

Barty sighed. The last thing he needed was another child at the daycare. Still, if it was only once and this woman needed their services badly enough, he knew Les would probably make an exception for her.

"Okay," he said finally. "She can stay. Just _please_ tell me she doesn't have a habit of removing her clothes. We have enough of that."

Before the woman could reply, her little girl reached into her pocket and tossed a handful of leaves at Barty, laughing at the distinctly unamused look on Barty's face.

"Yes," the woman said with a heavy sigh. "I'll never understand that. Where other children have their security blankets, Mary Lou has leaves. I tell her not to throw them at people, but she didn't listen the first time and she doesn't listen now."

Now Barty was confused. The Barebone children regularly mentioned a Mary Lou who liked leaves, but the little girl in front of him was far too young to be anyone's mother. And what did this woman mean by the first and second times? Even in the wizarding world, where these two did not seem to live, it was exceedingly rare for parents to de-age their adult children and start over.

He should have asked all of those questions. Instead he muttered something along the lines of, "We'll monitor her leaf usage," and allowed the woman to leave. But before she left, she said something.

"I'd tell you my daughter will be no trouble, but I'd rather not get your hopes up."

-x-

"You did _what_?" Les asked when Barty told her who was at the door. "Barty, you shouldn't have done that! If Credence finds out you admitted a leaf-loving child who answers to Mary Lou, he could _obliterate_ the daycare. And I've only _just_ managed to convince Modesty that she wouldn't be back!"

"So what do we do?" he asked. "I don't know where her mother is, so I can't just find her and give her back, can I?"

Les sighed and thought for a moment. Then, an idea came to her.

"We could split into groups," she decided. "With the little leaf child, we have twelve, so you, me, and Chastity could each take four. That way, we don't have to hunt down anyone's mother, but we won't be traumatizing anyone."

After a brief discussion with Chastity (who wasn't told exactly why this was happening, just that Les and Barty wanted to try something different) they decided to go through with this idea.

Les took the older children, which in this case meant Credence, Nagini, Modesty, and Alecto. Newt, Scabior, Gellert, and Albie were allotted to Chastity, which left Barty with Draco, Harry, Severus, and Mary Lou.

What could possibly go wrong?

-x-

"Now, you are all old enough not to need me looking over your shoulder at all times to see what you are doing," Les told the children, who were located in the room where naptime was usually held, though she immediately silenced Alecto's protests by saying they weren't required to nap. "Therefore, I will give you an hour to do whatever you want. Please don't make me regret my decision."

She sat in a chair in the corner of the room, returning to the book she was currently reading: _Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. _Fifteen minutes later, she looked up.

Credence and Nagini were playing with Blueberry, Modesty was making another leaf rubbing, and Alecto, who had demolished her previous rice tower, was now building the Statue of Liberty. From the looks of things, it seemed as if the four of them would actually manage to go through their whole hour without Les intervening.

Smiling, she returned to her book.

-x-

Chastity wasn't sure exactly what she was meant to do with four toddlers, so she tried asking them what they wanted to do. It was clear, though, that their suggestions were not to be considered.

"Have a _pawty_!" Gel suggested, throwing his pants into the air excitedly. The toddler groaned when they were immediately replaced.

"I don't know much about parties," Chastity admitted. "The only party I've ever attended was a birthday party for one of my mother's leaves, and I'd rather not do that again. Could you pick something else?"

"Go back to the nature park?" Newt proposed. "Pickett needs a fwiend. He's wonely."

"I...don't think miss Alessia wants me to take you to a nature park," Chastity told him.

Albie and Scabior also proposed suggestions that could not be used. Even if she wanted to, Chastity had no idea where she would get three hundred lemon drops and a phoenix, and snatching people's things was a concept she would rather not endorse.

"How about we eat cookies?" Gellert asked, reaching for his pants again.

He could have come up with a worse idea. Eating cookies was something Chastity could realistically arrange, and maybe Gellert would leave his pants on for about five minutes.

So she set the children up at the table and gave each a cookie on a napkin. All was well until Scabior, finished with his cookie, tried to snatch Albie's. When that failed, he reached for Gel's. Chastity decided to solve the problem by offering him another cookie of his own, which made everyone else decide they wanted a second cookie. Before long, she had four sugar-hyped toddlers on her hands.

Chastity sighed. _What_ had she just done?

-x-

Barty had only just closed the door when he turned around to see his children playing in a leaf pile.

"Okay," he attempted. "Now is not time to play with leaves. Put the leaves away, please."

"But it's _always_ time for leaves!" Mary Lou, leaves clinging to her hair and dress, said. Severus dumped a handful of leaves onto her head, and Draco threw some at Barty.

A minute passed. The leaf play continued. Barty said, "If you don't stop playing in the leaves, I am going to take them."

He looked over to see Harry dancing around with a leaf on his head. Severus and Mary Lou were now showering each other in leaves, and Draco watched for a moment before beginning to dance with Harry.

Keeping his promise, Barty produced his wand and said, "_Accio!"_ The children watched as every last leaf was summoned to Barty, then put in a bag and tied shut.

The effects were instantaneous. Mary Lou threw herself onto the floor and threw a tantrum that could rival Alecto's. Harry looked sad at the loss of his temporary hat, and Draco came over to give him a hug. Severus, staring at the floor, only said, "Why, Daddy?"

"Because, Sev, it's not time for leaves. It's time to engage in constructive activities that don't involve you playing with leaves. We can play with leaves later," Barty replied.

It took a bit of coaxing, but Barty finally got Severus, Harry, and Draco to sit at the table. Mary Lou, as Barty had half-expected, wasn't having it.

"_No!"_ she wailed when Barty attempted to tell her that daycare was for doing things that didn't always involve leaves. From the response he got, Barty thought he may as well have tried to get her to eat toilet peas.

"Fine," Barty said. "Have it your way."

He sat down with the boys and gave them some modeling clay to play with, watching them closely to ensure they didn't put it in their mouths. Barty did it for more than one reason: to entertain the children while showing Mary Lou that a tantrum wouldn't get her what she wanted. It seemed to work. After a few minutes more, the tears stopped.

And then he heard a bag tear, and the rustling of leaves.

-x-

Once Les's group finished their free hour, which went surprisingly well given Alecto was there, Nagini expressed her desire to eat, and the other three copied her. So Les conjured a table and chairs, then spread out the lunches everyone had packed.

As always, Modesty scanned her lunch for peas and bitter grass candy before eating, even though Les had told her multiple times that she would never serve either of those things. And as always, Alecto tried to shove a pile of shiny cookies into her mouth before she ate whatever her mother had packed as an actual meal, though she was once again reminded that if she ate her lunch itself first, she could have all the cookies she wanted. Nagini gave Blueberry to Les while they ate, saying she didn't trust herself to be near a pygmy puff during mealtime.

Les was stunned that she could continue to read while her group ate. Alecto didn't seem to require any of the redirection she usually did. She did leave many crumbs from the shiny cookies, though that could be easily cleaned with magic.

At the same time, though, she couldn't help but wonder if it would last.

-x-

When it became clear that getting the toddlers to sit quietly after eating several cookies apiece was an exercise in futility, Chastity decided to take her group outside. That way, they could run around without knocking everything over.

The space behind the daycare contained a sizable playground, a few scattered toys to play with, and would probably distract Gellert enough to keep his pants on. When they got outside, Newt offered Pickett to Chastity so he wouldn't become injured or lost while he was playing, and she set the bowtruckle down and let him walk around. Albie and Scabior ran off with no fuss, but Gellert did try to drop off his pants. Chastity didn't let him.

As the children played, she watched them, thinking. How fortunate they were to be able to play like that, rather than sitting on corners handing out leaflets. How lucky they were to know a life without belts, peas, and leaf machines wherever they turned. They worried about whether they would be able to lose their pants, not when they would next eat something other than peas.

Chastity was startled out of her thoughts by Albie pulling on her sleeve to get her attention. "Chastity! Gellert lost his pants!" he shrieked.

"I'll take care of it," she promised him. But when Albie maintained his hold on her sleeve and tried to pull her towards the fence, it dawned on her that this was more than a simple loss of pants.

Not only had Gellert taken off his pants, he had thrown them over the fence, convinced he had finally gotten rid of them for good. Chastity hadn't even known a two-year-old could throw something that far.

As the toddler grinned up at Chastity, and the others looked at her expectantly, she realized that she had absolutely no way to recover the pants. The type of fence the daycare used was not conducive to climbing, and even if she could, that would still require Chastity to leave the daycare property in order to retrieve them.

It was then that she realized something. Chastity didn't even _need_ to scale the fence to get pants onto Gellert. Les nearly always brought along some extras, so why couldn't she just get one of those and then explain to Les later why she had to use them?

She was just about to lead the children back inside, telling them they could return as soon as she got some pants for Gellert, when she looked at the place where the pants were and noticed...they weren't there. She looked up. It seemed one of the children had managed to use his accidental magic to levitate the pants, which now hovered above the fence. And as she watched, the child's concentration suddenly broke...dropping the pants in a heap on the correct side of the fence.

She didn't have to ask who did it. The horribly disappointed look on Gellert's face said it all.

For the rest of their time outside, Chastity didn't allow any of the children near the fence. Nor did she allow Gellert's hands to be within a few inches of his waistband.

-x-

Barty didn't know exactly what Les and Chastity were doing with their children, but it had to be better than what his group did. The mother/grandmother/etc. of little Mary Lou certainly hadn't lied when she said her daughter loved leaves. That was fine, of course, but it became a problem when she roped the other children into doing nothing but playing with leaves. The leaves Barty had _taken_ from her.

After they had finished with the modeling clay, it had been nothing but leaves. This had lasted an hour and a half, and now Barty never wanted to see a leaf again as long as he lived. Not to mention that he had about eight down his shirt.

He decided to solve this problem the way he usually did with his sons - by initiating naptime.

Using his wand to sweep the leaves aside, Barty conjured four mats and pointed to them. "Naptime, children. After this we'll have lunch. If you behave, I'll think about giving you some time to play with leaves after lunch. If you don't, we'll have toilet peas for lunch and no leaf time."

The children looked disgusted at the idea of eating toilet peas. "Yucky!" Severus shouted.

"Well," Barty said. "What do you have to do if you don't want toilet peas?"

Severus complied immediately, laying down beside Draco and curling into a little Sev-ball as he slept. Harry too was asleep in a few moments. Mary Lou insisted upon putting a couple of leaves into the pockets of her dress before she would sleep, though at this point Barty didn't care.

While the children slept, or convincingly pretended to as you never knew with them, Barty summoned all of the leaves except for those in Mary Lou's pocket, as she was at a very bad angle for him to retrieve them without waking her up. This time, he conjured a box, put them inside, and locked it. There would be no more illicit leaf usage at this daycare.

Now that they were asleep, Barty, already exhausted, sat down in a chair and closed his eyes. Maybe he could take a nap too? He set his head on the table and felt himself beginning to doze.

"Hi, uncle Barty!" Harry shouted cheerfully.

So much for that.

-x-

After lunch, though he didn't intend to, Credence ended up falling asleep, and Nagini took on her snake form and coiled herself beside him. Les reminded Modesty and Alecto that this meant they had to be very quiet and avoid doing anything that might awaken the sleeping Obscurial or his emotional support Maledictus.

Like her mother, Modesty began reading a book, though hers was about something very different. Alecto sat on the floor, playing with her rice.

How was it they were so calm? Les internally asked herself. Perhaps it made sense if it were just the more mature children, but Alecto too seemed to be content on the floor with her rice. Les couldn't even remember the last time Maisie's beloved daughter had gone so long without crying.

Of course, as soon as she thought about it too hard, Alecto accidentally knocked over part of her rice structure and burst into tears.

Les started to get up, but to her surprise, Modesty was faster. She knelt beside Alecto and said a few things that Les could just barely make out.

"I'm sorry your tower fell," Modesty said to Alecto, handing her a tissue. "But maybe you could make a new one instead. You could make one much bigger and better than your old one instead of crying about losing it."

Alecto clearly hadn't thought about that before. Within a few seconds, her cries died down to sniffles and she proceeded to rebuild her rice tower. Les was pleased to see that while both Credence and Nagini stirred a little, neither of them woke up.

As easy as her group was today, Les hoped that Barty and Chastity were having the same cooperation from their charges.

-x-

With Gellert returned to his pants, Chastity decided to feed the children before she tried convincing them to take a nap. She let them play together as she looked at the food supplies and surveyed her options.

The simple truth of the matter was that spending so long living with Mary Lou (the older version who wasn't currently taking a nap in the other room) had limited Chastity's cooking abilities to peas, pea soup, and dampish bread. She never wanted to eat any of those ever again, and she didn't want to serve them to the children, either.

One idea did occur to her. When Modesty was very young and had complained about the dampish bread, Chastity had warmed it up to make it less dampish. Perhaps children liked warm bread?

She figured out how to use the toaster and inserted two slices of bread. The bread was not dampish, but Chastity assumed the children would probably prefer a warm lunch to a cold one. This she continued until she had two slices of bread for all four children.

Once the bread was warmed appropriately, Chastity took two slices and set them before Scabior, then did the same for Albie, Newt, and Gellert.

"Where's the butter?" Gellert asked, confused.

"What do you mean?" Chastity inquired. She'd never put butter on warm bread before. Then again, most of Mary Lou's butter had peas in it.

"The toast," Scabior said, reaching over and trying to snatch Albie's plate. Chastity immediately stopped him. "You's supposed to put butter on it!"

Though she didn't understand what she was being asked to do, she took some butter and slathered everyone's bread in it.

She would have to make a mental note to ask Les about that later.

-x-

With the exception of Harry, who had remained talkative all through naptime, Barty's group had all slept peacefully, so he decided he wouldn't feed them toilet peas. Not that Les allowed peas on daycare property, but he supposed he could find some.

Instead, he gave Severus, Harry, and Draco what had been packed for them. Mary Lou's mother hadn't thought to pack her anything, so Barty searched the cupboards and ended up feeding her a stick of celery, a cup of yogurt, and a graham cracker. For such a temperamental child, she didn't seem to mind.

Once the children ate, Barty checked the clock. He had managed to take up enough time that they had only a half-hour before parents began arriving. Perhaps it would be easiest to give the children their promised leaf time, and then when she arrived, he would tell Mary Lou's mother that she needed to find other accommodations for the future.

So he opened the box of confiscated leaves and told the children they had thirty minutes of leaf time. Barty would spend those thirty minutes taking a nap, but he locked the door so the children couldn't leave.

A group of two- and three-year-olds could certainly behave themselves for half an hour, correct?

-x-

At some point between Alecto's completion of her rice tower and her mother's arrival, the woman-child had decided that she too wanted to take a nap. She finished her tower, then simply curled up beside it, clutched her bag of rice, and went to sleep.

That was what Les told Maisie and Amycus when they came to retrieve her.

"So, did she behave herself?" Maisie asked, though quietly, so as not to disturb her daughter, whom Amycus held with one hand and his tongue.

Les didn't even have to tell one of her patented Les-lies when she said, "Nicely."

Maisie promised to be back, and she and her husband left just as Dragon arrived.

After confirming with Les that Credence hadn't begun to nausea or exploded, she too took her son, Nagini, and Scabior and left the daycare. This left only Modesty, who sat at the table with another leaf rubbing.

Les couldn't hide her smile of relief. Today had been much less stressful than most of those she usually had at the daycare. And with the other parents arriving soon, she, Barty, and Chastity would all be able to relax soon enough.

-x-

The children had eaten, they had stopped Scabior from snatching their plates, but the naptime situation was simply not happening. Gellert shouted, "No!" before throwing his pants at Chastity, and Newt insisted that as his plush niffler wasn't tired, he wouldn't sleep either. So Chastity gave up and just had the children sit there until their parents arrived. Fortunately, that wasn't long.

Tassie came for Albie and Newt, who almost immediately ran to her and began to tell her about their day. This left Chastity with only Gellert, who was given some paper, crayons, and a book of stickers.

She hoped Les or Barty would retrieve him soon. Chastity couldn't think of anything else to have him do that wouldn't give him an opening to take off his pants, and she had seen enough pants removed today.

-x-

Barty woke up covered in leaves.

He turned to admonish little Mary Lou...only to realize that he couldn't see her or any of the others. As far as he looked, only leaves were visible. He knew the little girl hadn't brought that many leaves with her, so where had they all come from?

Barty raised his wand and tried gathering the leaves. Once he had done so, he used his magic to turn five leaves into one large leaf, then continued to do the same for the remainder. But when he finished and tried to hand the large leaves to Mary Lou, he just happened to look over and see where they had all come from.

Severus, it seemed, had used his accidental magic to multiply the small amount of leaves into a pile that buried everyone in the room. And when he found a stray leaf and held it out to his father, they watched as the leaf split into three.

Barty sighed. He only just managed to clean up all the leaves (and prevent Severus from touching any) by the time Cam and Ella came for their sons. Both of them agreed to bring the children by again.

Fortunately, Mary Lou's mother was right behind them. In lieu of a greeting, she simply said, "What did she do?"

"She threw leaves everywhere, had a tantrum when I took them away, and then reclaimed the leaves I took from her without her permission," Barty said.

"Mary Lou," she said, looking down at her daughter and her handful of leaves. "Apologize. I've told you not to behave that way."

"No, thanks," Mary Lou responded. "My leaves aren't sorry, so I shouldn't be either!"

"Well, you can tell this man you're sorry or you can lose your leaves."

An apology she clearly didn't mean fell from the little girl's lips immediately. Clearly, the idea of losing her precious leaves was too painful for her to consider.

Barty opened his mouth to say what he should have said in the morning, that he didn't want Mary Lou to return, but her mother said it before he could get anything out.

"I know. You don't want us to come back. I'm afraid we're used to it. This is the fourth daycare I've tried enrolling her in and she's yet to make it past the first day."

Barty said something about simply not having enough space for another child. But he did suggest that Mary Lou's mother look into behavioral therapy for her daughter.

-x-

With all the children gone, Barty returned to the room where daycare was usually held. Chastity and Les were already there, and Sev and Gel began to play together while Modesty finished her leaf rubbing at the table.

The grown-ups shared reports of their groups while the children were occupied. Chastity mentioned how Gellert had thrown his pants over the fence, and Barty shared how he had woken up in leaves.

"It seems we had no problem with your little mishap, Barty," Les quietly told her husband. "None of the Barebone children even had to see her."

However, Severus chose that moment to speak up.

"Daddy, when's Mawy Lou comin' back?" he inquired. "I wiked pwaying wif all her weaves."

At this, both Chastity and Modesty froze. "M-Mary Lou?" Chastity asked, her face going pale.

As Les said something reassuring to the two sisters, Barty buried his head in his hands. He had an idea of what Les would say to him later for letting them hear that, and he knew he had no desire to argue with a dementor that night.

-_end-_

_i'm sorry this exists i'm sorry i wrote it i really don't know what caused this._


End file.
